All Brown Bear Herbs Herbalism & Tactics for Thriving Together
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Plant Meditation Club: This week we meditated with Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris, flower essence.
Shepherd's purse for moving from shame to "it is what it is" & then embodiment.
Meditation 1:
Me: The essence says, "Your shame is in your mouth, right?" And I say "No, not anymore". The plant slowly scans a body's energy field moving from head downwards. Throat, shoulders, heart. Below these full areas, is a line, or angled lines. It is energy being pulled in as much as possible below the heart. This is a reaction to trauma.
Question from plant about trauma: What does it matter if it is above or below?
Answer: [either way] we pull our energy back in there.
Once we can shift from shame to "it is what it is" Then we can fill in "down there". I see the lower part of the body (which had been a line/lines) become filled with energy again.
Then the plant gives me some brain help. I see pink petals (like Uva ursi flowers) come around my head and wrap around my head closely.
My daughter: I see dirt (like normal ground) but it has crystals in it (stereotypical crystals). There are flowers growing from the earth, and a giant tree. I keep hearing
Very Ape, by Nirvana.
I am buried up to my neck inContradictionary liesI take pride as the kind of illiteratureI'm very ape and very nice
If you ever need anything, please don'tHesitate to ask someone else firstI'm too busy acting like I'm not naiveI've seen it all, I was here first
Out of the groundInto the sky (x2)
If you ever need anything, please don'tHesitate to ask someone else firstI'm too busy acting like I'm not naiveI've seen it all, I was here first
Out of the groundInto the sky (x3)
She thinks the plant is a medicine. It may be a supporting medicine, to take with something else. She doesn't like "don't hesitate to ask someone else first."
Meditation 2:
Me: now I feel a gentle pulse of energy in the area of my mouth, then my nose.
The herb says it works gently. First it assesses, then move from shame to "it is what it is", then the energy fills back in, then gentle pulse. It says it works much more gently than other herbs (like thyme or goldenseal).
Summary/Traditional Use:
Shepherd's purse is a tiny, weedy, plant, that is helpful for binding soil. It is said the average plant produces 3000 seeds, but large ones are estimated to produce 38,000 to 60,000 seeds! You can see from the picture above how the flowers go to seed moving upwards along the stem.
I use this medicine frequently for fibroids and prolapse due to muscle weakness. Clots during menstruation are one indication, as is a history of sexual abuse or intimate partner violence. It can be helpful for reducing clots and stopping or slowing thick, dark, oozy blood. The flower essence has strong messages around healing shame. Shame can be related to manipulation, lies, and gaslighting to protect the perpetrator. Shame may increase when people do not want to help, because they do not want to see the problem. It is hard to completely heal trauma, even emotionally stress-free traumas like a broken bone can cause us to pull our energy out of an area in shock. When there are many layers of emotional pain it is even harder to re-enter our body. I do think of myself as having healed the trauma around my mouth. After this experience I feel there is more work to do, and it is work that shepherd's purse can do gently.
I felt sorrow and comfort after this meditation. The sorrow comes from being grounded in the reality of what is. That groundedness gives us the ability to take steps to move forward into a new way of life.
Again and again I have heard this plant say "What fills you up, keep in your purse. The rest? Let it go, bleed it out." It is a reminder of the power menstruators have to release each month when they bleed. If you menstruate, take time to consider what you want to let go of, and enjoy the freedom you have to cultivate and enjoy that which you want to keep.
Invitation:
Have you worked with Shepherd's Purse as a tea, tincture or flower essence? Have you seen it in your neighborhood? it is so tiny that if you see it, I wonder if it is calling to you, with it's little heart shaped seed pods. Please share your experience in the comments below.